Beacon Hill

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Beacon Hill Page 12

by Colin Campbell


  Greg put a hand on his grandmother’s to calm her down. “We couldn’t get near him in Ireland. Thought he’d let his guard down, coming to America.”

  Grant indicated the guns on the table. “And you thought you’d shoot him down in the street?”

  Kalene shoved the guns away with her right hand. Two of the broken fingers were still crooked. They hadn’t been set right.

  “Didn’t come here to shoot him. Thought we could embarrass him on TV. All the coverage he’s been getting.” She shrugged. “The guns came later. When we realized talking to him on camera wasn’t going to happen.”

  Greg couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Dillman’s a pariah. Should be put down.”

  Grant nodded. “Can’t argue with you there. Unfortunately it’s against the law. Even in the gun capital of the world.”

  Greg curled his lip as he spoke. “Peace talks? There’s no peace for the families. Only the dead.”

  Grant sympathized but had to point out the obvious. “Can’t shoot straight with one eye.”

  Greg looked surprised. “I didn’t shoot him. I was the driver.”

  Grant thought about the damaged Ford and the bent Mercedes. “Can’t drive straight either.”

  Kalene wiggled her fingers. “If my fingers were straighter, I wouldn’t have missed.”

  Grant had never had such an easy confession in all his service. If that had been what he was after. There had been no arrest. He hadn’t read them their rights. Ha hadn’t written anything down. According to Hunt and Dillman, there was no crime relating to the shooting on Mount Vernon Street. Grant wasn’t here about that. This was about Charles Street and the café and Terri Avellone. He took a deep breath and prepared his next question. He reckoned he knew the answer even before he asked.

  “What about the shooting today?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Tyres squealed as Grant laid down rubber on Oceanview Street. He sped away from the house with more questions than answers, and more than a little frustration. Gunning the engine and speeding off was the only way for him to get it out of his system. Apart from shooting Greg Dunsmoor or beating up his grandmother. That wouldn’t have helped. The Dunsmoors hadn’t shot Terri Avellone. The Irish family weren’t anywhere near Charles Street when the café had been targeted. If they didn’t do it, who did?

  Grant throttled back once he was out of Oceanview. He threaded his way through a network of back roads towards Main Street and the bridge out of Winthrop. Airplanes continued to land at Logan International, but Grant was away from the flight path now. They were still loud, but not as deafening as inside the ramshackle holiday let. The police radio crackled with intermittent radio traffic. Routine messages and call signs. Grant tuned them out unless they called his name. Just like being on patrol.

  Except Grant wasn’t on patrol. He was off duty and out of order. He’d just left a confessed shooter and her getaway driver without so much as a slap on the wrist. Part of that was defiance against the authorities refusing to record a crime since the complainant wouldn’t report one. Part of it was because the complainant was lying through his teeth. The rest of it was because the true target deserved any bad shit that came upon him. Added to that, Grant liked the old lady and her half blind grandson. They’d promised not to do it again. Grant believed them. Not very scientific. Maybe even a dereliction of duty. But sometimes justice wasn’t always through a court of law, and the family from Ireland had suffered enough.

  Grant noticed the Crown Vic was low on gas as he drove past the Atlantis Marina heading up towards Main Street. He remembered there was a filling station just before the bridge. Another jet roared across behind him. The noise couldn’t dull the voices in his head. Kalene had shot at Dillman on Mount Vernon Street. A rushed fusillade as her grandson sped off, hitting a parked car on the way. A complete miss, but a tight grouping. The only tight grouping at the café had been the three shots that put down the armed officer coming out the door.

  That brought him back to the main question: Who had shot at Dillman on Charles Street? And was it a coincidence they’d used the same car reported at the first shooting? Grant didn’t believe in coincidences. He paused at the junction, then turned left onto Main Street. Two hundred and fifty yards. He paused again outside Belle Isle Seafood. The filling station was across the road, but he had to wait for three chemical tankers coming the other way, heading into Winthrop, then down the spur road to the Deer Island Treatment Plant. The trucks obscured his view of other traffic for a moment, then the road was clear. He turned right across the camber and pulled onto the forecourt. He tried to remember where the filler cap was and swung round so it was on the right side for the pump. Facing the marina and the airport and Boston Harbor beyond.

  Several questions ran through Grant’s head, spreading out from who shot at Dillman on Charles Street. Who else would want Dillman dead? The answer was, a lot of people. No conclusion there. How many people knew about the suspect vehicle? Right down to the make and color? That was a shorter list. Grant, the witness who’d seen it, the police who Grant had reported it to. That would include but not be restricted to Detective DeLuca. The information could have spread from there. Did Grant think there was police involvement? No. That conspiracy stuff only happened in the movies.

  Another question popped into his head: What if Dillman hadn’t been the target at the café? What if somebody wanted to stop the only cop who refused to drop the investigation into the first shooting? Grant paused with the nozzle in the filler cap. That theory had some weight and pointed at the only person who had been obstructive right from the beginning. Daniel Hunt. Grant shook his head. Hunt was a pompous prick but Grant didn’t see him having a cop shot to keep a lid on this. Next suspect would be Dillman himself. With the added bonus that it would raise his standing having survived another assassination attempt. Whatever negotiations he was due to hold with the British, he would be in a position of strength. The peacekeeper shot at in the street.

  That didn’t hold water. The shots had been too random, blasting out windows and ricocheting off tables. Until a threat had been detected when the cop came out, gun drawn. The next three shots had been very accurate. Three in the chest. Officer down. If the gunman was that good, he could have shot Grant before he flipped the table over for protection. So maybe the shooting had been for show all along. Make Dillman look good while not even coming close to killing him. Collateral damage just added weight to the threat. The cop and Terri Avellone had been that collateral damage.

  Grant squeezed the pistol grip and started filling the car. His knuckles were white around the grip. The pump whirred and pinged as the gauge ticked over. That last thought brought Grant back to an earlier question. Who else had known about the dark blue Ford? The man who’d been in the street at the time of the shooting.

  The intended target. Mike Dillman.

  Grant squeezed tighter. The pump was on maximum speed. The car only took a few minutes to fill. Grant stared out across the bay and took a couple of deep breaths. He relaxed. He eased the grip. Sunlight glistened off the water. Another jet landed on the runway half a mile away. Yachts from the Atlantis Marina sailed around the stubby knob of Snake Island between Winthrop and the airport. The Boston skyline stood out in the distance.

  Dillman. That made a lot of sense. The Irishman knew which car to use. He knew Grant had been doing surveillance from the café. And despite trying to paint himself as a man of peace, Grant reckoned a leopard can’t change its spots. Dillman’s spots were those of a killer. Bombings or shootings. People died because of him.

  This time one of those people had been Terri Avellone.

  The gas pump clicked off. The noise made Grant jump. He holstered the delivery nozzle and crossed the forecourt to the kiosk. His fingers counted banknotes from his wallet but his mind was calculating something else. Apart from catching the real shooter, the only evidence supporting Grant’s theory was an ageing grandmother and h
er dead son’s son. Up until now, the police and Jim Grant were the only people who knew where they were. The BPD weren’t suspects and Grant knew he was secure.

  Unless anybody had followed him to Winthrop. Somebody who knew Grant wouldn’t give up. Somebody who realized that if Grant could find Mike Dillman, he’d have no problem finding a visiting Irish family linked to Dillman’s past. If that were the case, he might have just led the gunmen right to the Dunsmoor family. Time to move them for their own safety.

  He thanked the cashier and walked quickly. Across the forecourt and past the gas pumps. He opened the door and paused. He took one last look at the calming waters and the Boston skyline. He made his decision and got in. Grant knew an ex-marine who’d be willing to put the family up for a few days. He got in and started the engine.

  The Crown Vic moved ten feet before Grant slammed the brakes on. The police radio was going crazy. Frenetic messages and call signs directing all available units to a report of gunshots taking place right now. He didn’t catch the location until it was repeated halfway through the broadcast.

  Oceanview Street. Winthrop.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Winthrop Police Department beat Grant to the scene by seven minutes; mainly because its headquarters were two blocks south of Oceanview Street at Metcalf Square. It looked like the entire department had descended on the log cabin holiday let, but even then, it was only four patrol cars and an ambulance. Two BPD squad cars had blasted past Grant on his way to the house. Cross-border assistance from Winthrop’s largest neighbor. Blue lights flashed. Armed officers aimed over their cars. A helicopter thudded across the sky, hovering due east out of the firing line and away from the flight path.

  Grant pulled up at the end of the street behind a BPD unit and the ambulance. He put on his blue flashing grill lights so they knew he wasn’t a rubbernecker or the press. He got out and leaned on the roof. The front door of the cabin opened and a uniform officer came out waving his hands that the scene was safe. He holstered his sidearm, then leaned on the porch railing and threw up onto the sidewalk.

  That was the first sign this was a bad one.

  Grant let out a sigh. The fact that the officer hadn’t waved the paramedics over meant there was nobody to resuscitate. Grant doubted anyone had left in the short time since Grant drove to the filling station. Simple mathematics suggested two dead in the house. A little old lady and her half blind grandson. The little old lady was probably what prompted the cop to be sick. Old people and children were the hardest for cops to cope with.

  The helicopter swung north for a better angle on the front porch. News crew, not the police chopper. Grant had his back to the camera. He ignored protocol as he held his badge wallet up and crossed the road. A strong walk and a confident manner got him through the outer cordon. He reached the sidewalk unhindered and spoke to the cop leaning over the porch railing.

  “Common approach?”

  The cop looked confused. “What?”

  Grant explained. “Where did you walk? I don’t want to stray from the common approach. Trample the evidence.”

  The cop nodded and indicated the door he’d just come out of. “Straight line in. Didn’t go near the bodies.”

  “How’d you know they’re dead?”

  “Go take a look. You’ll know.”

  That was the second indication this was bad.

  Grant nodded his thanks and went up the porch steps. He avoided using the railing. He didn’t touch the door handle. It was already open. Keeping to what he reckoned was the uniformed cop's incursion route, Grant entered the living room. Calling it the living room was overstating it. There was nobody living in there now.

  As soon as Grant was inside, he understood why the uniformed cop hadn’t gone near the bodies. Partly, it was to avoid standing in the pool of blood that surrounded the corpses like an oil slick. Mainly, it was because nobody Grant had ever seen had survived when they only had half a head.

  The half a head corpse was Greg Dunsmoor. It seemed cruel that the half still intact was the half with the blind eye. The other half was splattered all over the easy chair where Grant had tossed the .38 less than an hour ago. The .38 wasn’t in the chair. It was probably still on the kitchen table along with his grandmother’s gun. Grant stood on the edge of the blood slick and examined the body with his eyes. Hands were empty. No sign of the gun on the floor. No sign of a struggle. Greg’s position looked like he’d been approaching the front door to see who was knocking when the intruder burst in and shot him at point-blank range. One shot. In the face. Taking his good eye and half of his head.

  Half a head. That was bad enough. His grandmother had no head at all.

  Kalene Dunsmoor had ended her life watching her only remaining family member shot down in front of her. She’d been standing in the hallway from the kitchen. At the door to the lounge. Watching her grandson check the front door. She was unarmed. Maybe they’d thought it was Grant coming back for more questions. Maybe they thought the danger was over, having been discovered by the BPD but not arrested. She stood in the doorway with her back to the hall and watched the final tragedy of a family blighted by tragedy. With her back to the hallway. Which meant facing away from the rear door.

  The second killer had shot her in the back of the head. The bullet exploded her brain and took everything off above the jaw. Upwards and forwards, spraying blood, brains, and bone fragments all over the living room bureau. She lay in a crumpled heap with one hand reaching towards her dead grandson. In the final irony, it was the hand that had survived the bombing in Birmingham. The hand with three broken fingers.

  Grant took a step backwards, keeping to the same path he’d used coming in. The room smelled of gunfire and something else. One of the Dunsmoors had voided their bowels. Grant didn’t know which. Maybe both. The final ignominy after death. He felt an urge to cover the bodies but knew that wasn’t necessary. There were no onlookers rubbernecking for a look at the corpses. The news helicopter couldn’t intrude in here. The crime scene needed preserving as intact as possible. No need to cover the bodies and maybe disturb fibre evidence. Grant didn’t think there was going to be any transfer from the killers. They hadn’t touched their victims. This was a clean kill.

  And I led them here, Grant thought. The same as he’d taken Terri Avellone to the café where she’d been killed. Resurrection Man. The name seemed wholly inappropriate. He was more like the mark of death for anybody he touched. He vowed to be the mark of death for whoever had done this.

  He turned and walked out to the porch. The uniformed cop was still leaning over the railing. Other cops were using crime scene tape to close the street. Nearer to the house, an officer had lined up traffic cones around a section of tarmac and was joining them with scene tape. Cordoning off a set of tyre marks a car had left when it sped off.

  CSI arrived next. Along with a detective in clothes so plain Grant wondered if he was part of the auxiliary police instead of full time. The CSI definitely wasn’t full time. The Winthrop coroner doubled as the Crime Scene Investigator because there were rarely any scenes to investigate. He brought a camera and a suitcase and some kind of supermarket carrier bag with rubber gloves and overshoes. It didn’t instil Grant with confidence in the abilities of the Winthrop PD to solve this case. Without a smoking gun and a confession, he reckoned they’d take any suggestions as evidence.

  Grant crossed to his car while the detective spoke to witnesses near the ambulance. The witnesses were three elderly neighbors huddled together around the back door while a paramedic wafted smelling salts under the nose of one who looked more than a little faint.

  “This is such a shock. In Winthrop. Oh my goodness.”

  The sick witness looked like a retired schoolteacher. A smartly dressed man of indeterminate age. He was sitting on the back step of the ambulance. Two old ladies fussed over him. The detective showed his inexperience by interviewing them all together instead of separating them. The story he
was getting was an amalgamation of what all three had seen. The detective wasn’t even writing any of it down.

  Grant listened from his car. Door partly open but not getting in yet.

  Detective: “You hear the gunshots?”

  Witness 1: “Sure did. Like war had broken out.”

  Witness 2: “Bang, bang. Really loud. Winthrop is very quiet you know.”

  Witness 1: “Oh my goodness.”

  Witness 3: “Yes, indeed.”

  Grant felt like this was going to be a long interview. The detective added gravity to his voice and put on a serious face to show he was professional. He still didn’t write any of this down.

  Detective: “How many shots?”

  Witness 1: “Oh. A lot.”

  Witness 3: “More than one. For certain.”

  Detective: “How many more than one?”

  Witness 1: “Two or three.”

  Witness 2: “Maybe more.”

  Witness 3: “Definitely more.”

  Grant decided there was no point listening to anymore. It was time for him to explain what he knew and hope information overload didn’t blow the detective’s mind. He was about to step over and interrupt when the questioning took a different turn.

  Detective: “You see the car that drove off?”

  Witness 1: “Damn right. Pardon my language.”

  Detective: “Consider yourself pardoned. The car?”

  Witness 1: “Left those tyre marks. Drove off like a maniac. Right after the shooting.”

  Witness 3: “No. Before some of the shots.”

  Witness 2: “It was after the shots.”

  Witness 3: “Are you sure? I’m certain there were some shots after the car left.”

  Witness 1: “It was very confusing.”

  Detective: “Can you describe the car?”

 

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